


Pure Imagination

by tenshinokorin



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Stucky - Freeform, bishonenink halloween special, look party city has Cap and Winter Soldier as a couples costume, no unsolicited concrit please, you know these two are totally married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-31
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-02-23 09:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2542700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenshinokorin/pseuds/tenshinokorin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Halloween didn't used to be like this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pure Imagination

"Okay," Steve said, with taut jaw and a grim stare, "that's just plain scary." 

Bucky, lolling on the handlebar of the shopping cart and preoccupied with his phone, spared a sideways glance for the object of Steve's dismay. "What," he drawled, with a few thumb taps on his screen, "Is it the inaccurate helmet, the quilted muscles, or the fact that it's for toddlers?" 

"It is," Steve said, pulling the child-size Captain America costume from the hook, "the fact that's it's $29.98. And the shield doesn't even come with it." He flipped the hanger over, and his scowl deepened. "And it's made in _Vietnam_." 

Bucky's tapping faltered, and the flapping bat on his screen met an untimely death among the tombstones (its seventy-eighth of the day). "Look, Steve--" he began. 

Steve's eyeroll was enough to stop the "look, Steve" lecture in its tracks. But just to be certain, he followed up fast. Captain America was not the greatest soldier in history because he left openings for assault and/or argument. "Don't even start on the 'things have changed' lecture, Buck." He shook the costume for emphasis. "I know things have changed. I've been out for years now, I've noticed. But this is just highway robbery. If a kid wants to go as Captain America for Halloween that's great and all, but can't they just paint a white star on an old t-shirt or something?" 

"They _can_ ," Bucky said, his phone-app bat starting up yet another doomed flight, "if he wants to look totally--" He paused, looking up from his screen. The bat died again, unnoticed and unmourned. "...lame? Lame would work there, right?" 

Steve made a noncommittal noise. For the most part he left modern slang up to the experts, but Bucky was determined to try. "It's a little ableist," he allowed. 

Bucky stared at him. "Steve, I'm an _amputee_." 

Steve put up his hands. "So maybe you get a pass? I don't know how it works!"

Bucky grunted agreement. It was a tricky thing to wake up one day and realize that a third of your vocabulary no longer meant what you thought it did, and another third wasn't fit for polite company. 

"And it's not just the costumes," Steve continued, though to be fair the costumes were a big part of it. There were puffy Captain America suits in every size from infant to XL adult, and two pegs over, enough stockings and sequins and (non-copyright-infringing) _Cpt USA_ petticoats and satin corsets to outfit the world's most patriotic strip-club. "It's all just so expensive. And fake. I mean, aren't we supposed to be thinking ecologically, now? Carved pumpkins are the most green-friendly decoration on the planet and over there is a bin-full of plastic ones that'll take seven hundred years to break down in a landfill, it's just--" 

"Scary," Bucky finished. 

"Exactly." Steve waved away a wall of sexy-lady Iron Man costumes (wouldn't they be Iron Woman, anyway?) and oversized green Hulk fists. "Why can't they just--" 

He broke off, edging out of the way for another cart coming down the aisle. In its wake was a small girl, no older than seven, who bypassed the fluffy princess gowns without a batted eye, and came to a halt right in front of the Captain America display. "That one," she said, in decisive tones.

Her mother peered up from her envelope of coupons and looked at the costumes. "Are you sure? It's a few weeks before Halloween, you know." 

"Mooom, I haven't changed my mind about my Halloween costume since I was five." It was apparent, from her tone, that the constant reminder of such ancient history was a source of great anguish. 

"All right, all right," her mother said, reaching for the sparkly tutus. "Just checking. Do you want the blue or the red--" 

"Not the dresses," the girl said, and pointed at the costumes one row over. "He doesn't look like that. I want the real Captain America costume." 

"Oh," her mother said, and gave a little wink at Bucky and Steve. "The real one. Right." She flicked through the peg and put one of the miniature Captain America suits in the cart. "Okay, now get one of those shields. Even I know Captain America needs a shield." She backed her cart up, with an apology to Bucky and Steve for getting in their way twice. 

"Good choice," Bucky said in an undertone, as she went by them again.

"Ah, they're a little pricey," she said, but she was smiling. "But they're so much nicer than they used to be when we were kids... those awful plastic bags with the masks, you remember." She smiled as her daughter brandished her shield at a row of glow-in-the-dark skeletons. "And they're only kids once!"

"Only once," Steve echoed, a little creaky. 

"Her brother wore his Iron Man shirt for years, even after the batteries died. It's all about imagination for them, you know? All she has to do is put it on and she's Captain America." She cast a weary eye over the shelves. "Makes me wonder if they have them in my size! Come on, Peggy, we've still got to get groceries." 

Peggy, shield in hand, stealth-jumped ahead of the shopping cart and then marched protectively by her mother in the direction of the housewares section. 

Bucky stuffed his hands in his pockets, phone and all, and shot Steve a knowing look. There was a protracted silence. 

"I'm still getting a real damn pumpkin," Steve said at last, and retreated from the aisle like a man honorably defeated.

~o~

**Author's Note:**

> Steve dealing with the effects of modern-day merchandising, requested by Darthneko! The game Bucky is playing is called Flap That Bat. He likes the music, and that it’s kinda retro even for him. Also you would have to be a super soldier to be any good at it, I mean, I can’t even get past the 22nd tombstone.


End file.
